Sage Monarch

Bai Yin was angrily lamenting over the fact that Yang Qi had reached godly ascension. He felt like all the wind had been taken out of his own sails because of it.

If Yang Qi, despite being vastly more powerful than himself, had finally given up, then what could he possibly do? Perhaps he should just become a god rather than continue pursuing vague goals that could never be met.

Yang Qi could tell what he was thinking. However, after his own experiences of forming Paramount will and then completing monarch godhood, he knew exactly how hard it was. It was only because of the God Legion Seal that he had succeeded.

With monarch godhood, Yang Qi could defeat Consummate Gods despite only being a Lesser God himself. That was a jump of quite a few levels. It involved going from the early Lesser God level to the mid, late, and peak levels. After, one had to pass the early, mid, late, and peak of the Common and Greater God levels. Only then would one be a Consummate God. Counting all the sub-levels, that was a total of twelve levels to jump. The idea of a gap of twelve levels was simply unimaginable.

A Consummate God could normally kill a host of Lesser Gods with a mere glance. It would be similar to pouring a pot of boiling water onto some ants. Yet with monarch godhood, a Lesser God could fight a Consummate God; one could hardly imagine the power, psyche, and will that would be required for that.

For all intents and purposes, Bai Yin could work hard for his entire life and never succeed. It wasn't a matter of how much effort he spent on it, but rather the destiny and fate that existed in the god world.

Yang Qi couldn't help but admire Bai Yin for his tenacity, no matter how unrealistic he was being. And he wasn't going to be the one to burst his bubble. Eventually, Bai Yin would come to realize the truth on his own and decide to give up on aiming for monarch godhood.

"Ai. Just go ahead and apply to be an elite disciple. With your new position, you'll definitely be able to push your cultivation base higher and higher. You'll soon reach the mid Lesser God level, then the late and peak levels. At that point, you'll become a grand elder, and no one will be able to touch you." Bai Yin waved his hand dismissively, and Yang Qi left.

Before long, he was at a wide plane in the middle of the god kingdom, where a huge temple could be seen, which was the location where disciples would come to be promoted to the elite level. Of course, the only way to go from being an official disciple to an elite disciple was to first become a god. And then one had to pass certain tests.

Elite disciples were also broken up into ranks, which corresponded to the Lesser God levels of early, mid, late, and peak. In other words, it came down to a test of godhood.

A godhood rating of one would place one in the early Lesser God level. Four and five were the mid level. Six, seven, and eight were the late level. And nine was the peak.

A godhood rating of ten would make one a Common God.

Of course, that was for average disciples. There were some Lesser Gods who had godhood ratings that surpassed ten, and climbed as high as twelve or even fifteen. People like that who were still Lesser Gods were considered top geniuses who would receive special attention from the sect.

As for Yang Qi, he had spent the better part of a year working on his cultivation in the ninth floor of the Chaos Forge God-Shrine. During that time, he had gained much enlightenment regarding methods to control one's godhood. Because of that, he could make his godhood look to be whatever level he wanted it to be.

Upon arriving at the temple, he saw quite a few disciples coming and going. The House of God Ordainment was huge, and the god kingdom it controlled was so large it defied imagination. Because of that, there were always disciples coming to take the tests for promotion. In turn, that meant having a job in this place was even more lucrative than working in the Scripture Pavilion.

Upon entering, he caught sight of the disciples in charge of the place, who were standing there looking cold and indifferent.

"You two," Yang Qi said. "I've reached godly ascension and am here for my promotion."

"Oh? You reached godly ascension? Well, there are always disciples in the House of God Ordainment doing that. You'll have to wait your turn." Looking Yang Qi up and down, the disciple shook his head. "I'd say you'll have to wait for about a year."

Yang Qi waved his hand, causing godnotes to appear in the hands of both of the disciples. They suddenly looked a lot more polite than before.

"You obviously know how things work, boy. But you want to cut your wait time from a year to a month, you'll need to fork over ten more godnotes."

Yang Qi produced twenty godnotes and handed them over.

"In this case, you'll only need to wait for three days." The two disciples exchanged a glance.

Yang Qi produced twenty more godnotes, and the disciples nodded.

"Excellent. You don't need to wait at all. You can take the test right now. Follow us."

They led him deep into the temple, to a private chamber where three Common God grand elders were waiting.

"A disciple wanting to be promoted?" one of them asked.

"Yes," the disciples replied respectfully. Then one of them leaned over to Yang Qi and said, "These three grand elders deserve their due as well...."

"Alright," Yang Qi said, and he handed them a total of fifty godnotes.

The grand elders nodded. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Let's start the test right now." Even as the words left his mouth, a spell formation in front of him activated and a hexagramic image appeared. Yang Qi walked forward onto the formation, whereupon it began to assess him.

"Godhood rating one. Body substructure, life force power...." The spell formation went on to analyze him in detail. In response, the grand elders nodded, occasionally assessing his godhood themselves.

"Very good," one of the grand elders said. "Congratulations on becoming a god. Now, hand over your identity medallion."

"Alright."

The grand elder took the medallion and sent some godpower into it to scan Yang Qi's information. "Let's see here. Yang Qi. You joined the House of God Ordainment two years ago, and you're currently assigned to the second floor of the Scripture Pavilion."

"What?" one of the grand elders said, a look of surprise on his face. "Your name is Yang Qi?"

"That's right, I'm Yang Qi." Yang Qi looked at the grand elder and knew something fishy was going on. Smiling coldly inside, he surreptitiously sent a tiny stream of devil energy into the man to form a devil embryo.

'This is Yang Qi from the second floor of the Scripture Pavilion? But isn't he supposed to be dead? Wasn't he killed by the White-Haired Boxer King? What is he doing here? This is completely shocking! I have to go report this to the White-Haired Boxer King!' Obviously this grand elder was also an important person in the Dragon Society.

Clearing his throat, he said, "Something important just came up. You two continue with the assessment." Rising to his feet, he hurried out.

The other two grand elders didn't seem fazed. They continued with the assessment, and after about an hour passed, they both nodded.

"You definitely deserve to be an elite disciple. However, to get your promotion, you need to pay the requisite merit points. Unfortunately, you don't have enough merit points in your identity medallion. Look, it's obvious that you're anxious to become an elite disciple, so how about this. I can arrange for you to get those merit points right away. It will cost you five thousand godnotes, that's all. Then you'll meet all the requirements to be an elite disciple. What do you think?"

Yang Qi nodded. "That's fine."

These grand elders were obviously using their position for personal gain, but Yang Qi didn't care. After all, he could make as many godnotes as he needed.

There were plenty of disciples in the sect who had businesses related to providing merit points. For example, some disciples had a pressing need for certain magical treasures and would pay other disciples for them in merit points. Or sometimes disciples would just have too many merit points and would sell them for godnotes.

As long as one had a jade identity medallion to perform the transaction, anyone could make deals like that. And by adding commissions on top, many disciples could make a tidy profit from such business.

Yang Qi handed over the five thousand godnotes, and the deal was sealed.

A moment later, he was an elite disciple, with a new uniform. He was also given some medicinal pills and magical devices, as well as a few other random things. His position was now very different. At the very least, no one would consider simply trying to get rid of him. The penalty for killing an elite disciple was severe.

That much had been obvious from how the White-Haired Boxer King dealt with Meng Guo after learning about the death of the Lesser God from the Missions Sanctuary.

An important person in the sect might be able to turn a blind eye to the death of an official disciple, but not an elite disciple.

Now that Yang Qi was an elite disciple, he should be able to get a much better position in the sect.

For example, a job on the third floor of the Scripture Pavilion.

All he would have to do would be grease the wheels with the right grand elder.

Of course, although the Scripture Pavilion was a nice job, it couldn't compare to working in the Treasure Storage Warehouse, the Medicinal Pill Warehouse, or the Thrall Camp. Yang Qi was already considering trying to get assigned to work at those places.

**

Meanwhile, in the White-Haired Boxer King's mansion grotto, the same grand elder from before was just now entering for an audience.

"What's going on?" the White-Haired Boxer King said coolly. "Aren't you aware that I'm in seclusion?"

"Sir, I had to see you about that Yang Qi. He just showed up looking for a promotion!"

"Yang Qi? Which Yang Qi?" The White-Haired Boxer King was obviously unconvinced that the man was referring to the same Yang Qi he had 'killed'.

"The same Yang Qi from the second floor of the Scripture Pavilion. The friend of Jadefall. He hasn't been seen for the last year, so we assumed he'd been killed by you. But he showed up today as a god! And I'm afraid that by now, he's probably already an elite disciple."